The ultimate weapon

Jonathan_S wrote:No ships do not 'accelerate past c'...

Hmmm...1st so they aren't traveling faster-than-light, then they are traveling faster-than-light, that would be - by definition - accelerating past the speed of light, they are simply by-passing N-space physics by moving to a different dimension (called Hyper space) actually pretty much (by definition) like SW (and every other s.f. that uses the "hyperspace" hypothesis), the mechanics of the transition and the physics of hyperspace are just different, and more elaborate, and original/entertaining - as it should be.

Jonathan_S wrote:First a useful anti-ship projectile weapon in the honorvers is going to be at least multi-tons, not just hundreds of points (at the start of the series capital missiles were around 80 tons and the warhead was probably at least a few of them).

20 100s is still "100s", ok, mabe a few 1000 POUNDS, still not 10s of 1000s of TONS

Jonathan_S wrote:But more important you didn't explain why if, as you claim, effective hyper limit must vary by size of opening a 38,000 ton dispatch boat and a 8,500,000 ton (more than 200x larger) SD(P) don't have different hyper limits. If lighter ships could enter or leave hyper closer to the star that absolutely should have come up as a tactical consideration.

Actually there would have to be.

Jonathan_S wrote:But more important you didn't explain why if, as you claim, effective hyper limit must vary by size ...
But nothing in the books ever talks about anything affecting the size of a hyper limit except the mass of the object at it's center.

Its called physics.
gravitational force is; F = Gm1m2/r2 where
m2 is the mass of the ship/projectile etc...
and
m1 is the mass of the star
the two are multiplied together, so the gravitational influence is between the two objects and mass of the entering object would influence the gravitational force...

just no enough (on a starship scale) to warrant revisions per ship class. The actual limit would also vary on a per-ship basis (which is part of why different things may happen to different ships challenging the limit) the listed limit is the known 'safe' distance for any ship, (just as the accel-comp have a safty margin - challenging of which is hazardous but not automatically fatal - depending on the specific capacity of the equipment)
and resulting sheer, which is...

Jonathan_S wrote:And if, as it seems, the inability to enter/leave hyper is caused by the spacetime curvature of that object's mass it would make sense that just as acceleration of an object (in vacuum) in a gravity field isn't affected by it's own size/mass that the ability of a hyper field to have a 'flat' enough surface to work also isn't influenced by it's own mass.

No, it would be the gravitational sheering that occurs. whose effects would vary depending on the structural integrity of different objects trying to transition. just as a modern Nuke warhead has far more structural integrity (based on its need to be blasted into space, reenter, and still work) than a 7000tn FFG, a HH Warhead would have far more SI than a 48000tn dispatch boat (or even a 2000tn shuttle) - that's why they can accelerate so much faster than the ship that fired them (or that they are aimed at). it would just be an engineering issue (and an infinitely easier one than with even a small craft) to design them to survive the sheer forces of a hyper-limit.

As I said to begin with, not something HH will likely take to Sol, but something for R&D to develop in the future, and look nostalgically back to the 'old days of the Havinite wars' when the 'old-timers' use to lob missiles at each other...can you imagine!?

MAD-4A wrote:<snip>Its called physics.
gravitational force is; F = Gm1m2/r2 where
m2 is the mass of the ship/projectile etc...
and
m1 is the mass of the star
the two are multiplied together, so the gravitational influence is between the two objects and mass of the entering object would influence the gravitational force...

just no enough (on a starship scale) to warrant revisions per ship class. The actual limit would also vary on a per-ship basis (which is part of why different things may happen to different ships challenging the limit) the listed limit is the known 'safe' distance for any ship, (just as the accel-comp have a safty margin - challenging of which is hazardous but not automatically fatal - depending on the specific capacity of the equipment)
and resulting sheer, which is...

<snip>

If you wish to push Physics, The equation you are actually looking for is called "Reduced Mass"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_mass

it is a derivation of the Force formula you stated above, but is what happens when M1<<<<M2.

The short of it is when a Mass is much, much, much smaller than the central mass (say, a star), the subject's mass has virtualy no impact on the equation.

So Like Galileo did in the 1600s when determining whether a ball or a feather would fall faster towards Earth, they fall at the same rate because neither has enough mass to effect the earth.

In our case, neither a missile or a SD has sufficient mass to gravitationally distort the gravitational field of the star in question, making the hyper limit the same.

On the other hand, when a planet would make a hyper translation (assuming it could), the gravitational distortion caused by it's mass WOULD interact with the star's mass gravitational distortion, forcing it's hyper limit to be further from the star.

But for "small" objects, the gravitational interaction with the star are essentially identical, and the Hyper limit would be the same.

Theemile wrote:... the subject's mass has virtualy no impact on the equation.
making the hyper limit the same...

Key word here is 'virtualy', they would not be exactly the same

Theemile wrote:... So Like Galileo did in the 1600s when determining whether a ball or a feather would fall faster towards Earth, they fall at the same rate because neither has enough mass to...

He lacked the measuring capacity to measure the difference, though they do exist. but...
the main issue is shear stress, and much smaller objects (and ones that lack any need for human habitation/hallways/heads/showers/etc...like a projectile) can be designed to handle much greater stress than a starship (of any size) could ever be, allowing them to pass through areas of much higher stress.